ing appears to have little of that distinct succession of ideas, and that logical articulation, which are requisite to impress sound conviction on the understanding. We fear, however, that we begin to descry one capital cause of the Dean's success, in something else than the literary merits of his oratory: and our readers will hardly avoid the same surmise when they read the following passage. Expressing his reverence for the man, "however he may differ in speculative opinions," who relieves the wretched, &c. &c., he proceeds, "Should such a man be ill-fated, here or hereafter, may his fate be light! Should he transgress, may his transgressions be unrecorded! Or if the page of his great account be stained with the weakness of human nature, or the misfortune of error, may the tears of the widow and the orphan, the tears of the wretched he has relieved, efface the too rigid and unfriendly characters, and blot out the guilt and remembrance of them for ever!" Now if an admired preacher, after a pathetic address to the passions of a numerous and wealthy auditory, many of whom had never accurately studied the doctrines of Christianity, could have the courage to proceed forward, and declare to them, in the name of heaven, that their pecuniary liberality to the claims of distress in general, and especially to the case of distress immediately before them, would secure them, notwithstanding their past and future unrepented and unrelinquished sins, from all danger of divine condemnation; intimating also, that, on the extreme and improbable supposition that they should be consigned to the region of punishment, it would prove so light an affair as to be rather a little misfortune than an awful calamity, he might certainly persuade them to an ample contribution. But that an enlightened minister of a protestant church could have the courage to declare or even insinuate the pernicious sentiment, awakens our utmost astonishment. We think there can be no doubt that a certain proportion of the money collected after the address, in which such a passage as this was seriously uttered, would be paid literally as the atonement for the past crimes, and as the price of an

extended license to repeat them with impunity. If the whole of the oration was powerfully persuasive, we cannot fail to attribute a large share of the success to that particular part, so soothing to apprehension, and so flattering to ignorance and corruption.

In returning towards Dublin, our author made a visit to the house of Mr. Grattan; and he might well feel himself flattered by the welcome, and the polite attention, which he experienced there, and gratified by the mental luxuries which, we may believe, scarcely another house could have supplied. We should have been glad to receive some more particular information about this distinguished orator, than the assurance merely of his being a polite and hospitable man, an elegant scholar, and respectable in domestic relations. We should have been glad to hear something of his studies, his personal habits, his style of talking, or the manner in which he appears to meet advancing age. Yet we acknowledge it is a difficult matter for a transient visitor, who is received on terms of formal politeness, to acquire much knowledge on some of these particulars, and a matter of some delicacy to publish what he might acquire. A number of pages are occupied with passages from Mr. Grattan's speeches; some of which extracts, we believe, were supplied to Mr. Carr from memory, and therefore are probably given imperfectly. On the whole, however, these passages tend to confirm the general idea entertained of Mr. Grattan's eloquence, as distinguished by fire, sublimity, and an immense reach of thought. A following chapter is chiefly composed of similar extracts from Mr. Curran's speeches; in most of which the conceptions are expressed with more lucidness and precision than in the passages from Grattan. These specimens did not surprise, though they delighted us. We have long considered this distinguished counsellor as possessed of a higher genius than any one in his profession within the British empire. The most obvious difference between these two great orators is, that Curran is more versatile, rising often to sublimity, and often descending to pleasantry, and even drollery; whereas Grattan is

VOL. I.

C

always grave and austere. They both possess that order of intellectual powers, of which the limits cannot be assigned. No conception could be so brilliant or original, that we should confidently pronounce that neither of these men could have uttered it. We regret to imagine how many admirable thoughts, which such men must have expressed in the lapse of many years, have been unrecorded, and are lost for ever. We think of these with the same feelings, with which we have often read of the beautiful or sublime occasional phenomena of nature, in past times, or remote regions, which amazed and delighted the beholders, but which we were destined

never to see.

*

[January and February, 1807.]

An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie, LL.D., late Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic, in the Marischal College and University of Aberdeen; including many of his Original Letters. By SIR WILLIAM FORBES, of Pitsligo, Bart. 2 vols.

WHEN a man of humble condition and education, who has cultivated literature under the pressure of many disadvantages, and perhaps distresses, comes before the public with a work which has cost him great labour, costs the purchaser but a moderate price, and communicates very necessary, or at least very useful and seasonable information, he may justly claim for the faults of his book the very last degree of forbearance which criticism can exercise, without surrendering its essential laws. But when a man of fortune, who had a liberal education, who has been intimate with many of the most distinguished individuals, both in literature and rank, for forty years, who would indignantly disown any wish to raise money on the grave of his friend, who knows that an ample memoir of that friend. has already been given to the public, and who adopts the easiest of all possible modes of making up volumes, publishes a splendid work, he will naturally disdain to be under any obligation to the clemency of critics. We shall therefore feel perfectly at liberty to express our honest opinion on these volumes; and laying out of the question all the excellencies which the author doubtless possesses, we shall consider him simply in the character which he has assumed in appearing before the public.

We cannot but earnestly wish that the present epidemical disease in literature, the custom of making very large books about individuals, may in due time find, like other diseases, some limit to its prevalence, and at c 2

length decline and disappear. What is to become of readers, if the exit of every man of some literary eminence is thus to be followed by a long array of publications, beginning with duodecimos, extending into octavos, and expanded at last into a battalion of magnificent quartos? This is reviving to some purpose the Theban method of attacking in the form of a wedge; and we do hope the curiosity, diligence, and patience of readers will at last be completely put to the rout.

This swelling fungous kind of biography confounds all the right proportions in which the claims and the importance of individuals should be arranged, and exhibited to the attention of the public. When a private person, whose life was marked by few striking varieties, is thus brought forward in two volumes quarto, while many an individual of modern times, who influenced the fate of nations, has been confined to a sixth part of the compass, it reminds us too much of that political rule by which Old Sarum, consisting of one house, is represented by two illustrious senators, while many very populous towns are not represented at all. If a professor of a college is to lie thus magnificently in state, what must be done for such a man as Mr. Pitt or Mr. Fox? And still more, what must be done after the exit of some persons who are at present acting their part in human affairs? The French Encyclopedie will be, in point of bulk, but a horn-book in comparison of the stupendous host of folios, which must come forth after the departure of Bonaparte and Talleyrand; provided, that is to say, that sufficient materials, in the way of paper, ink, &c., can then be obtained wherewithal to furnish out this mighty blazon of monumental history. And by the way, the makers of paper will do well to take the hint from us, and have their warehouses ready for the event which will happen sooner or later in their favour, though to the confusion and dismay of the most courageous and indefatigable readers. As to reviewers, the most industrious and incorruptible of all the servants of the public, they will then have the plea of absolute necessity for resorting to the practice of which they have sometimes